Epidemiologists and scientists believe vaccinating India’s 1.3 billion plus population would be a stupendous effort and the aim of the Covid-19 vaccines is to cut the transmission of the disease by vaccinating at least 60-70% of the population, thus creating 'herd immunity' wherein a majority are protected from the disease.
Under the umbrella of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC), vaccine distribution in India will be led by states with the help of the state steering committees.
The NEGVAC is expected to provide guidance on prioritization of population groups, procurement and inventory management, vaccine selection and vaccine delivery and tracking mechanism.
Huge logistical exercise
“Our purpose is to break the chain of virus transmission. If we are able to vaccinate a critical mass of people and break the transmission, we might not have to vaccinate the entire population,” said Balram Bhargava, head of the Indian Council of Medical Research.
“Nobody expects that the entire population of the country can be vaccinated against Covid-19. That will not be necessary,” T Jacob John, a virologist told RFI.
By all estimates if an effective vaccine is made available today in India, manufacturers would need 6 to 8 months to reach that target and then more time would be needed to deliver the vaccines to the people.
More importantly, to ensure that the vaccine reaches the critical mass will involve many factors including the choices of vaccines, distribution, identifying groups for early vaccination, storage and more importantly, trained personnel.
The government has also not made clear how vaccines will be distributed and whether private health-care networks will be involved.
The participants were briefed on India’s indigenous efforts to develop Covid-19 vaccines, including ongoing clinical trials. pic.twitter.com/hqpN6dGP1a
— Anurag Srivastava (@MEAIndia) December 9, 2020
Adar Poonawala, the CEO of the Serum Institute of India (SII), is hopeful that emergency licensing of ‘Covishield’, the vaccine for the coronavirus would take month or two and his company would then ramp up production.
“We have already produced about 50 million doses and soon we will double and triple the production by January-February. We are looking at 100 million doses a month as output after,” Poonawala told RFI.
The ongoing clinical trials have been more than enough to prove the vaccine's efficacy and in some ways SII took a gamble to mass produce the vaccine after it showed promise in the pre-clinical phase and progressed to human trials.
Rollout not in sight yet
For now, the government hopes to rope in its nearly 240,000 strong vaccinators from its Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) to manage the logistics of administering Covid vaccines. But given that administering the two-dose vaccine is an intramuscular injection, it is also thinking of setting up a specialized force.
Officials also realize that the cold chain and distribution infrastructure needs to be scaled up. It is for this reason several pharmaceutical majors are in touch with logistical leaders that are gearing up to take on the mammoth task of transporting Covid-19 vaccines across the country.
Currently, three prominent vaccine candidates are being tested in India, only one of which, Covishield, had reached phase-3 trials.The other two candidates being tested by Zydus Cadilla and Bharat Biotech are in phase-2 trials.
The Covid task force committee led V.K. Paul is in the process of drawing up a blueprint for the entire process of vaccine procurement that is being done centrally and each consignment would be tracked in real time until delivery to ensure it reaches those who needed it most.
India currently has the world's second-highest number of coronavirus infections, behind only the United States, with 9.83 million cases and over 143,000 deaths.
